Nightpeople

by Anthony Eaton

‘True.’

  ‘So perhaps I just wasn’t supposed to believe him. Not till now.’

  ‘I didn’t think you believed in any of that sort of stuff, Gan.’

  ‘I didn’t. But then, I didn’t believe women could be Dreamers, either.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

  Neither said anything more for a long time, then Saria heard the old woman shuffle away.

  ‘I’d better go get the camels in and ready, eh?’

  ‘Yeah. Hang on and I’ll give you a hand.’

  And they were gone.

  Gan left them sometime during the small hours of the night. For an age the three walked through the desert in procession, Dariand leading, then Saria, and finally the old woman and the two camels. Nobody spoke and Dariand set a fast pace.

  Eventually, though, soon after crossing one of the broken-rock roads, Gan whispered, ‘Here.’

  Dariand stopped. ‘You sure you won’t come to Woormra?’

  The two looked hard at each other until Gan broke the silence.

  ‘That’s not my path.’

  ‘Where will you go?’

  ‘Back to Olympic.’

  ‘We talked about this, Gan. You won’t be welcome there now. You vanishing the same night as her’ – Dariand gestured at Saria – ‘They’ll have worked it out for sure.’

  She shrugged. ‘Gotta find out. Even if they’re a bit upset, they still need the camels and someone to drive ‘em.’

  ‘A bit upset doesn’t begin to describe it. When I left there …’

  Gan held up a hand to stop him.

  ‘Let me deal with that, Dariand. If they aren’t pleased to see me, who knows, eh? P’raps then I’ll come over to Woormra and see how this all plays out.’

  For a long moment Dariand held the old woman’s gaze, then finally relented with a tight smile.

  ‘Be careful.’

  ‘You know me.’ Gan turned to Saria and, much to the girl’s surprise, seized her in a tight embrace. ‘You be strong now, girl. Do what you need to, eh? Dream some good dreams for me.’

  Startled, Saria searched for something to say.

  ‘I will.’

  ‘’Course you will.’

  Gan turned to leave, then looked back.

  ‘You know something else, girl? You might have your mother’s hair, but you got your father’s attitude.’

  Then, with a tug on the halter and a soft click of her tongue, Gan climbed onto the kneeling camel and had soon slipped into the night.

  ‘Come on.’ Dariand turned and started nightwards again.

  ‘What did she mean by that?’

  ‘By what?’

  ‘I’ve got my father’s attitude.’

  ‘Nothing,’ Dariand snapped. ‘She’s just a stirrer. Now let’s get moving.’

  They walked in silence for a long time. The daywards horizon was beginning to lighten when Saria noticed movement in the distance.

  ‘Dariand?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Look.’

  She pointed away to their left, to where a thin thread of brightness whipped this way and that through the air. Dariand followed her finger and froze.

  ‘Nightpeople.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we hide?’

  ‘They’re a long way off. They won’t see us.’

  Soon after, the low-pitched hum drifted through the night, faint with distance.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  They started walking again, not changing course, but as they travelled Saria kept an eye on the distant light. There was something insect-like in the way it zigzagged across the sky, its movements unpredictable. From time to time it would vanish and then moments later reappear in a different spot. The humming was intermittent, too, reaching them only as brief, distant bursts of sound.

  Suddenly Dariand stopped. He turned around slowly, his head raised, listening to the night and peering out into the darkness.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘There’s another.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Over there somewhere.’ He pointed to their right. ‘Close your eyes and listen. You can hear two hums.’

  Saria concentrated and she heard it. Another layer of noise, slightly higher but different again, was coming from the opposite direction to the first. Then a third hum, coming from directly behind filled her ears.

  ‘Can you hear that?’

  But Dariand was already pulling her towards a small pile of stones. Saria half ran, half stumbled behind him.

  ‘Down!’

  The rock pile was nothing more than a few small boulders, the largest no higher than Saria’s knees. There was nothing large enough to cover even her, let alone a man Dariand’s size.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Get on your hands and knees! Now!’

  He shoved her roughly to the ground.

  ‘Bend forward, like a kneeling camel. Good. Tuck your head down.’

  Saria did as she was told, crouching on all fours beside the rock pile. Dariand arranged the loose material of her desert robe into a rough hood that covered her head as well as the rest of her body, then, to her shock, he tore a skin of water from his belt and poured the whole thing over her, soaking her robe, her arms and her head. It was icy as it trickled along the back of her neck and through her hair.

  ‘Don’t move!’ he hissed as she involuntarily shivered.

  He threw a few handfuls of sand over her, the dirt and water combining instantly to create a cold, muddy crust.

  There was another sloshing as he emptied a skin of water over himself, and after two quick rolls in the dust he was crouching beside her, his head only a few inches from hers.

  ‘They find you by heat and movement. The sand and the water should cool us enough, but whatever you do, don’t move, not even a tiny bit. I don’t care if it hurts like you’re about to die; do not move.’

  The noise of the hummers slowly combined to form one continuous resonating clamour. Saria tried to steady her breathing and control her heartbeat, but it thundered in her ears. One of her arms was beginning to cramp.

  ‘Steady. Breathe deeply.’ Dariand’s voice was little more than a breath in her ear. ‘They’ll soon pass.’

  With a scream, one of the hummers floated overhead and Saria clenched her eyes shut against the noise, which pounded through her and into the ground. Even the rocks were trembling.

  Then there was light. A brief flash, as bright as the dayvault, and the sound was moving away, its pitch and intensity dropping. She began to relax.

  ‘Don’t move. It’ll be back,’ Dariand hissed.

  Sure enough, the hummer returned and this time the light seemed to linger over them. Crouching, trapped in the brightness, Saria tried to concentrate on being a rock, on fitting in to the pile.

  The noise grew louder and the ground vibrated until it felt as though the humming was coming from inside her skull rather than the vault above.

  Then, abruptly, the hummer angled away across the desert and was gone.

  ‘Stay still. I’ll tell you when to move.’

  They crouched in the desert silence. Saria’s arms and legs were numb, and amazingly she might even have dozed off for a few minutes, because the next thing she was aware of was Dariand helping her up.

  ‘They’ve gone.’

  Saria looked around, surprised to realise it was almost daylight. Dariand was brushing off the mud and sand which clung to his robes, and she did the same. Then he stopped and looked at her.

  ‘You did well.’

  She didn’t answer, not certain what to reply.

  ‘They don’t usually come so low. I’ve only had them that close to me once or twice. You were brave not to move.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Turn around.’

  He used his hands to scrape as much dirt from her back as possible.

  'I'm sorry I didn’t have time to explain. The mud is the only way to stop them picking up your heat. Sometimes even that’s not enough.’

  ‘What if
they spot you?’

  ‘It depends who you are. And what you’re doing.’

  ‘If it was us?’

  ‘I don’t know. I imagine they’d leave me here.’

  ‘And me?’

  He hesitated for a moment before answering.

  ‘We’d never see you again.’

  ‘What would they do with me?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Nobody knows. But they tried to take you once already, when you were a baby, and they’re bound to try again. They won’t get you if I can help it, though.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’ He looked around. ‘We need to move. If we walk fast, we might even make Woormra some time tonight.’

  ‘We’re going to walk through the day?’

  ‘Not for long. But we need more water now, so we’d better go.’

  ‘Will they come back?’

  Dariand shook his head.

  ‘Not now. We call them Nightpeople for a reason.’

  He offered her his hand. It was large, brown from years spent outdoors, with hard, knotted calluses of skin all over the palms and fingers. When she took it, it engulfed her own.

  ‘Let’s go.’ He led her away from the sunrise.

  Dariand’s prediction that they’d manage the distance in just one night had been wrong. They’d made slow progress because of the number of times they’d had to avoid patrols.

  ‘I’ve never seen this many around,’ he’d said after the fourth time.

  ‘Are they looking for us?’

  He shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

  ‘Slander wanted to give me to them. Maybe he’s told them about us.’

  ‘Slander? Perhaps.’ Dariand frowned slightly. ‘Though I wouldn’t have thought he’d sell us out so cheaply. Baanti wouldn’t allow it.’

  Even with the delays, they managed to continue slowly nightwards until, as the third night was drawing to a close, Dariand stopped at the crest of a small hill.

  ‘There.’ He pointed.

  Lying in a low valley was a collection of shacks, much the same size as Olympic but without the surrounding fence. In the pre-dawn darkness the town looked lifeless. A gathering of shapes and shadows huddled under the immensity of the nightvault.

  ‘I’m going to leave you here while I go and wake Wanji, alright?’

  ‘Can’t I come with you?’

  The thought that a patrol might come past while she was alone threw shivers down Saria’s spine.

  ‘No,’ Dariand answered. ‘Just because the town was safe when I left doesn’t mean it still is. You wait here until I come and get you. Even if I’m gone for a while.’

  ‘What if Nighpeople come?’

  ‘Here.’ He handed her a water-skin. ‘You know what to do. I trust you.’

  Even through her nerves Saria flushed at the compliment.

  ‘Wait under those bushes.’ Dariand pointed at a small clump of desert scrub a little way down the slope. ‘I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

  And then he was gone, loping towards the town. Saria watched, but he quickly melted into the shadows of the nearest huts.

  Sighing, she made her way down the slope and settled in the shadows of the bushes.

  Soon the light was growing and the town emerged from the gloom. Saria studied it with a sinking feeling. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this. Woormra was even more rundown and dilapidated than Olympic. Many of the huts were clearly empty, missing walls or roofs, and large gaps yawned where the buildings had either collapsed or had their parts pirated. Like Olympic, the town seemed thrown down, shacks strewn across the landscape with no sense of reason, separated by alleyways and dirt streets of varying widths.

  The morning grew brighter and people began appearing in the streets, going about their daily routines. Saria slipped around to the back of the bushes to avoid being noticed and wondered what was keeping Dariand.

  Eventually, exhausted and bored, she scraped a small hollow in the sandy ground and slept for a while.

  Dariand woke her in the late afternoon.

  ‘Shh.’ He placed a gentle hand over her mouth. ‘Stay quiet. When it gets darker, I’ll sneak you in to town.’

  ‘Why can’t we just go down? I thought Woormra was safe?’

  ‘Baanti and Slander thought Olympic was safe, too. But I come and go there whenever I want. You never know who’s watching and listening. If we have Gan keeping an eye on the Olympic mob, who’s to say they don’t have someone here?’

  ‘Did you see Dreamer Wanji?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘You’ll meet him yourself soon.’

  The two sat until the nightvault was dark. Then Dariand rose silently, gesturing Saria to do the same.

  He led her around the edge of the town before angling into a dark alley between two deserted huts. Like Olympic, Saria was soon disoriented as they wove through the maze in the darkness. At one point they came to a broad open space, just like the one she’d glimpsed between the huts in Olympic, with a low, round structure in the middle of it. Several people stood around it, talking.

  Dariand signalled her to stop, and they waited, crouched in the shadows, until the gathering broke up. When the people had gone, they dashed across and into another alley.

  Finally, Dariand led her into a hut as rundown as all the others. Unlike the others, though, this one was shuttered and almost as dark inside as it had been down in the pit.

  ‘What are we doing?’

  ‘You’ll see.’

  Dariand pulled a tin sheet over the doorway and the darkness was absolute. Then came a strange creaking noise and as her eyes adapted, Saria made out a dull red circular glow in the floor.

  ‘Over here.’

  Silhouetted against the flickering light, Dariand was nothing more than a large shadow looming out of the darkness. He took her hand and gently led her towards the circle. As they came closer, Saria realised it was another pit, another covered hole, and she tried to pull away. But Dariand kept a firm grip.

  ‘It’s not a cell. It’s a tunnel.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘Look for yourself. I’ll stand over here.’

  He moved away and cautiously, keeping one eye on him, Saria crept forward and peered down. The round chamber dropped to about the same depth as the cell in Olympic, but firelight was spilling into it from a passageway dug into one side.

  ‘Where does it go?’

  ‘To Dreamer Wanji. Come, I’ll go first.’

  Dariand dropped easily into the hole, then held his arms up to lift her down behind him.

  Saria hesitated, memories of the pit still fresh in her mind.

  ‘I don’t think I can.’

  The hole looked so small, and the tunnel might be nothing more than a narrow trap.

  ‘Saria, trust me.’

  Trust me.

  She looked into Dariand's eyes and found nothing in them to suggest he intended her any harm. Wordlessly, she sat, swung her legs into the hole, and let him take her weight and ease her to the floor.

  The tunnel disappeared into the earth, curving slightly and dropping at a shallow angle. While she stared along it, Dariand reached up and pulled the hatch cover back into position behind them with a thump.

  ‘How far does it go?’

  ‘You’ll see. Follow me.’

  Dariand had to walk almost doubled over to avoid banging his head on the roof, but Saria could walk upright. The light grew brighter as they curved downwards. They passed a recessed space in the wall, in which a small dung-fire burned, the smoke vanishing up a narrow chimney cut into the top of the alcove.

  ‘The smoke comes out under an abandoned shack.’

  He led her down and down, past more dung-fires. The spiralling curve of the tunnel seemed to grow tighter as they descended, and Saria had no idea how far they had walked when abruptly they stepped out into a far bigger space.

  At first she thought it must have been the insi
de of a large hut, because the light coming from the tunnel behind seemed to dissipate into space. She soon realised, though, that they had merely stepped into another tunnel, one much larger than the first. It was big enough that even Dariand could stand upright.

  ‘Are you alright?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Good. This way.’

  Another fire-hollow flickered some way off, and Saria could see more beyond that. Large areas of darkness between each one gave the tunnel a feeling of vastness, especially after the confining closeness of the entrance passage.

  Passing through one of the light patches, Saria looked at the walls. They were rough and angled, as though someone had torn through the rock. The floor was smooth and easy to walk along, though at one point she stumbled and tripped.

  ‘Careful!’ Dariand was beside her, helping her up. ‘Walk close to the walls. It’s safer.’

  Kneeling, Saria peered at the floor, trying to see what had caught her foot. Embedded in the smooth rock was something cold and hard and pitted and like nothing she’d ever seen.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘We don’t know.’ Dariand shook his head. ‘It’s from the times before. There’s two lines of them down the middle, so stay over to the sides.’

  ‘The times before what?’

  ‘The Shifting. These tunnels are old.’

  He wouldn’t say anything more; he just kept walking.

  When they’d first stepped into the larger tunnel the air had seemed colder. As they walked though, it grew warmer and more humid and she was soon sweating.

  Finally, an opening loomed ahead and beyond it a dark space, clearly enormous.

  ‘Here we are. Journey’s end.’ Dariand stopped and crouched before her, straightening her robe and using his hands to brush down her hair as best he could. When he was finally satisfied with her appearance, he leaned back slightly and held her shoulders.

  ‘You ready?’

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘The Dreamers’ Council. This is where the Dreamers meet. From here, you go alone.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m not a Dreamer. I’m not on the council and I’m not allowed into their meetings.’

  ‘But I’m not…’ She began to speak, but Dariand placed a callused finger on her lips.

  ‘We both know you are. And even if you weren’t, you’d still be allowed in.’